SOME weeks ago, I wrote an article about how I had built myself a new bird table after several years of being without one.

FOR much of last week there was high pressure over the midlands. In the mornings there was white frost everywhere and often a cold fog. In the afternoons there was strong sun, blue sky and little breeze.

BUSINESS took me to Dublin the other day, but it wasn’t very hectic business so I ended up with some spare time to watch brent geese grazing on the pitches of the GAA Club in Sandymount.

LAST week on this page Damien Enright described the magnificent trees on the neglected estate at Kincragie, near where he lives in Co Cork.

ONCE I had a bird table but it was involved in a fatal accident with a runaway lawnmower. I didn’t bother replacing it because I keep poultry and whenever I feed the hens and ducks flocks of wild birds descend and pinch their rations.

ONE of the mysteries of Irish natural history has finally been solved and the solution is rather an elegant one. We now know how and when bank voles got to Ireland.

I SPEND a lot of my time sitting in front of a computer beside a window that has a splendid view.

IVY is an extraordinary plant. I was in a mixed-species wood the other day and I started to notice how selective it is about the species of tree it chooses to climb. In this wood its favourite was ash and its least favourite was holly.

I HAVE always been interested in how people lived and what they ate in prehistoric times, particularly in the middle and early stone ages before farming.

I WONDER what the prospects are for Irish wildlife in 2008? I remember in 2007 a news story saying 171 Irish plant species were threatened with extinction because of climate change.